Samuel J. Redman is a historian, educator, author, and Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is also the Director of the UMass Public History Program. He previously worked at the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Field Museum of Natural History, and History Colorado. He holds a B.A. in anthropology and history from the University of Minnesota, Morris, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in American history from the University of California, Berkeley.
Redman's work and commentary have been noted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Associated Press, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Republican, Slate, Wired, Hyperallergic, The New Yorker, Washingtonian, The Times Literary Supplement, Science, and Nature. He has also appeared on CBS News, MSNBC, CNN, Vice News, NPR, NBC Boston, ABC San Francisco, and Democracy Now! Following recent federal actions and breaking news stories about museums, he spoke to media outlets in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Chile, and Spain.
Redman is the author of four books. Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums (Harvard University Press, 2016), Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology (Harvard University Press, 2021), The Museum: A Short History of Crisis and Resilience (NYU Press, 2022) and Tarnished Promises: Indian Peace Medals in North America (University Press of Colorado, 2026).